The US-based broadband testing company Ookla said that it fully stands behind the accuracy and reliability of the methodology.ET Bureau | March 23, 2017, 05:48 IST

Reliance Jio Infocomm and US’s Ookla continued to bicker over allegations that the latter had wrongly certified Bharti Airtel to be India’s fastest mobile carrier.

In a statement on Wednesday, the US-based broadband testing company said that it fully stands behind the accuracy and reliability of the methodology used to assign India’s fastest mobile network’ tag to Bharti Airtel. Jio retorted, saying Ookla's statement was an admission that its method was faulty, and hence, wasn’t foolproof.

Defending its speed test results, Ookla said that the carrier displayed in the Speedtest Android application is based on the “Active Carrier” value returned by the device. Due to limitations of the Android platform, the “Active Carrier” does not always indicate the actual data provider in devices with multiple SIMs.

In these situations, Ookla applies additional data sources and mechanisms during post processing to help determine the actual data carrier being tested. “Ookla matches the connection IP address recorded during the test to known carrier IP blocks, which enables it to determine the actual data carrier with a high degree of confidence,” the company said, adding that Airtel’s margin of victory increased when the complete analysis was performed.

The Mukesh Ambani-led telco, which had questioned Ookla’s methodology for the Speedtest results with much of its commentary focused on role of dual SIM devices, in a separate statement said, “We note that Ookla has now admitted to ‘limitations’ in its application, and that it “does not always indicate the actual data provider in devices with multiple SIMs.”

The 4G entrant further said that this admission by Ookla reinforces its submission that there is a clear contamination in primary data collected by Ookla in India, where nearly 90% of smartphones are dual SIM devices.

“Any results that are based on incorrect and contaminated primary data cannot be definitive, only probabilistic. It is a travesty that such results are being passed off as “official” results by a market-leading operator. We will continue to expose such misleading practices and raise it at suitable forums,” aJio spokesperson said.

Ookla, however, argued that it goes to great lengths to ensure that the information collected on any Speedtest internet test is verifiably correct, adding that data accuracy and neutrality is of the utmost importance to the company.

Jio has already approached the Advertising Standards Council of India, the advertising watchdog, seeking withdrawal of Bharti Airtel’s recent advertisements based on Ookla’s Speedtest results.

Jio’s lawyers Khaitan & Co. sent a notice to Ookla for “falsely certified Bharti Airtel to be India's fastest mobile carrier with full knowledge of that the test results are fundamentally flawed and unreliable”.